Laughing Fate (2 page)

Changing his clothes as quickly as possible, Potter dressed into an old pair of jeans and was reaching for his shoes when his ‘spidey sense’ went off.  Looking around the beach, he saw the evil one a little less than ten feet away, walking towards her beach towel.  What should he do? He had been successful at staying clear of Puck for years; this was the first time that he’d been within ten feet of her since he could remember.

“Howdy,” he called, not because he wanted to strike up a conversation, but because you don’t show fear in front of evil predators.  He quickly avoided her gaze when she whirled around to see him.  He wasn’t that brave, her eyes were scary as heck.

She had already changed into a pair of faded jeans and an oversized t-shirt. Some abstract part of his brain perked up at the sight of a pretty girl, but then fright killed that thought.  Puck wasn’t a girl; she was a menace, a predator, in short the Devil. 

“Hi,” she said in a clipped tone. What the heck?.  If she didn’t want to say hi, she didn’t have to.  Her voice could really freeze the sun over, it was that cold.  Her eyes were shooting daggers at Potter, and he quickly looked away. 

He found himself staring right into the face of a giant man-eating seagull.  He hadn’t seen the stealthy movements of the gull moving in for the kill because he’d been focused on Puck.  Gulls were just like the devil, though, if you opposed them they would flee; that’s how Potter had survived all these years at the cove. The gull cocked his head to the side, eying its prey with hate in its beady little eyes.

“Kah!” it roared mightily.

“
Holy mother of Pete!” yelled Potter as he stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and started wind milling his arms wildly to gain his balance.  Evil laughter floated towards him as he fell on his back. 

The gull, no doubt frightened by the presence of a greater evil, flew away letting out another fear inspiring, “Kah!” The sound of which sent shivers down Potter’s back and straight through his soul.  Potter sat up to look at the laughing hyena and glared when she laughed harder.  Dang, she looked like she would stop breathing, she was laughing so hard.

Potter may not be an exceptionally brave man, but he had pride, and Puck was mocking him! He wouldn’t stand for that! Potter gathered up all the courage in his soul and stared into Puck’s eyes.

“
You’re afraid of seagulls?” she asked incredulously.  Her evil eyes gleamed with humor and her mouth was grinning as wide as the sea.  Oh no! She scented weakness! He was a goner! A dead man! He was doomed!

“
Kah!” she mimicked, flapping her arms as if they were wings, and dancing around him.  Holy crap, what kind of evil being would torment a stranger so? Male laughter filled the air as his buddies made their way to their towels.  Thank God! Reinforcements were here!

****

‘Don’t you look at him.  Don’t you look Puck Berri!” Puck told herself when she saw Mr. Macho man, Potter, slide his wetsuit down his torso.  Oh my.  He wrapped a towel around himself and then pulled off the wetsuit.  Wow.  Reminding herself not to stare, she started to towel herself off.

She quickly dressed, trying to warm herself up.  Unlike some sissies, she didn’t wear a wet suit.  It messed with the whole ocean experience.  The northern Pacific was supposed to be cold.  Which, Puck had to admit, had led to her having mild cases of hypothermia several times.

Hypothermia really wasn’t that bad, regardless of what the doctors had to say about it. Puck regularly stayed in the ocean past the point where your body goes numb, and once your body warms up, all the better, right? Several times she had crawled out of the ocean, feeling drained, cold, and numb and seeing pretty colors.  It was really quite cool, Puck thought, as long as she didn’t die from it.

Puck glanced at Potter again and saw him staring at her with horror and disgust, as if she was a monster!  God, how rude! She knew she wasn’t swimsuit edition pretty, but she wasn’t hideous! Her mother thought she was pretty anyways…

Narrowing her eyes at him, she gave him her best glare.  He quickly glanced away suppressing a shudder.  Now what was wrong with him? He was such a tweaker! The truth was that they were virtually strangers.  She had grown up in the same town as him, but they had hung out in different crowds. She remembered him vaguely in school, he had been a year behind her, but they had never hung out.  She tended to avoid tweakers and jocks, and well…men. Well, not all men, but definitely guys like Potter who thought they were demigods.

“
Howdy,” he called with a slight head nod.  God, she hated it when guys did that stupid testosterone induced head nod.  You didn’t see girls communicating with a lazy head nod, that could mean anything from “Hi, how are ya buddy?” to “I have a bigger woo hoo than you.” Men were so stupid!

“
Hi,” she said in a perfectly civil tone.  She was wearing a faded pair of jeans that were just a little too tight and a black oversized Roxy t-shirt, but she was still too cold.  She rubbed her hands together to warm them up and wondered briefly if it was normal for her arms to be so red.  She was aware that Potter kept throwing her nervous glances, so she glared at him.

At that exact moment, Potter completely spazzed out!  Apparently a seagull was standing near him and ‘kah’ed at him.  The next thing Puck knew Potter was on the sand looking like he was going to cry!

Laughing maybe a little too much at his pain, Puck walked up to him.  Forgetting for the moment that she hated him, she asked, “You’re afraid of seagulls?” The stupid man just stared at her, completely stupefied and looking like he was staring at his own death.  Not one to pass up an opportunity to tease someone, Puck may have started to imitate a seagull, but she managed to do it in a very dignified way.  Once she got that out of her system, she looked at him in complete bewilderment and maybe a little scorn, and held out a hand to help him up.  It was the only polite thing to do.

“
Umm…thanks,” he muttered as he took her hand and dang near pulled her down with his body weight.  They awkwardly stared at each other for a moment.  Puck caught herself fidgeting with her sweater and quickly put her hands to her side. She would not let Potter know that she was nervous. Never one to like silences, Puck decided to end it. 

“
Last I heard there’s never been a recorded instance of a seagull attack.  Ever.  So you’re probably just overreacting just a tad, don’t you think Mr. Macho?” Her voice oozed scorn and ridicule.  She thought she heard him mumble something about the reason being that the gulls bury their dead, but she must have misheard, no one was that crazy.

Potter’s face was still white, but his eyes had lost the bambi look. Puck found herself staring at his eyes. From far away they looked almost black, but up close she could see that they were a dark blue. Kind of like the color of the ocean on a winter’s day. He had nice eyes…for a spaz.

“I am not scared of seagulls! It just caught me by surprise is all.  You’re Puck, right?” His voice was coming out high and stringy, like he was scared witless. 

“
Yeah.” God, how stupid was he? They may not be friends, but they had grown up in the same small town.  The retard knew her name!

“
Yeah…” he repeated, evidently thinking it needed to be said twice.  Was he retarded? That look was back in his eyes, too, like he was scared out of his mind.

The look was back in Puck’s eyes, Potter noted, fear filling his soul.  A macho man knew when to run and that time was now. 

“Well, nice talking to you…see you around, Puck.” His voice had only a slight squeak to it, Potter was proud to note.  She probably knew he was nervous, but it would do, he figured.

‘
What a retard!’ thought Puck.  She was slightly agitated at his use of her name.  She didn’t like people to say her name unless she knew them real well.  A name was just too intimate to be used casually.  The sound of her name on his lips was making her slightly queasy…an odd feeling that she’d never felt before.  Man, he was hot, even if he was scared of seagulls.

His friends were walking towards them with their dripping surfboards.  She had nothing against the four surf bums, except they were friends with Potter and men. Puck made her exit as swiftly as possible, one macho man she could handle, but five? Come on! That was a headache waiting to happen.

****

Watching her leave, Potter shuddered.  “That is one scary lady,” he said to no one in particular.  Steve, who was nineteen, grinned at Potter, shaking his head.  He was friends with Perri, Puck’s sister, and out of the five of them, knew the most about Puck.

“She’s not that scary, man!  She’s a little weird and uptight, but scary?”

Brad laughed at Steve’s remark and punched him in the arm.  “Dude!  You’re forgetting that he’s afraid of seagulls! Ha ha ha”

Potter took it all good naturally; the truth was everyone was afraid of something. Dave was afraid of snakes, James (a twenty year old surfer) was afraid of needles, Steve was scared of spiders, and Brad (the youngest in the group at eighteen) was terrified of bees.  In Potter’s eyes Puck and Seagulls were both far scarier than any of those.  Potter smiled and let the guys get their laugh; he’d get them back later.

Looking on the bright side though, he had just survived his first real encounter with the evil Puck Berri. Potter shuddered as he remembered the past crimes of one Puck Berri.  She had the knack of looking angelic and committing the most heinous of crimes.  She was a legend in Sunny Cove for all the crimes she had committed in the past.

It all started in grade school when she tried to burn down the school (she succeeded in burning down a small bush before she was caught.)  The little devil in disguise also teased little boys and girls until they cried and threw rocks at her classmates for fun and all the while she looked angelic. Her last act of fifth grade had been freeing the class hamster...into the sixth grade snake’s food dish.

In middle school she got the reputation as a witch.  She punched a guy in the jugular and kicked another in the balls, all because the brave stupid fools asked her out on a date.  She shaved her neighbor’s cat and painted it blue, and then she had discovered the world of paintball guns and had started hunting kindergartners.  She was the scourge of Sunny Cove Middle School, tormenting and teasing all of her friends.

Her last act of seventh grade had been to cherry bomb the teacher’s bathroom.  She was on the honor student list both years, why? Because the teachers had never known it was Puck who had been terrorizing the middle school students.

Then in High School she successfully started a fire, although she swore up and down it was an accident.  Each time something disastrous happened around her, she’d smile her cute little smile and swear it was an accident. Dang, if it didn’t work for her, she didn’t get into a scrap of trouble all through high school, even though many students had physical and emotional scars from Puck.

After graduation her crimes got much, much worse.  Apparently, Puck had gotten bored with her life.  She shaved her head and told everyone she had cancer.  The next month she was ‘cured’ and the gullible town named August 6
th
officially Puck’s day, as that was the day she announced her miraculous recovery from cancer.

Her brothers, James and Jimmy, moved away around that time to live in California.  They later married and had families of their own.  Potter only vaguely remembered them, as they were much older than him, but they had been trouble makers as well.  That whole family was weird, Perri being the only normal one in the bunch.

Puck’s parents decided they were meant to be out at sea, so they sold their house, set Puck and Perri up in a town house and moved onto a house boat.  With no one but her younger sister to check her moves, the eighteen year old Puck got in even more mishaps.

He’d seen Puck take a cute little cuddly kitten and throw it repeatedly at a chained German shepherd and dang if she didn’t laugh each and every time. That poor kitten was stupid enough to come back to Puck every time she murmured sweet nothings in its ear. And each time she threw that defenseless kitten right at the dog and laughed again and again.  No doubt about it, Puck Berri is evil down to the core, even if she did have one of the most innocent sweet smiles in creation.

Even right now she was hitting her jeep with a long piece of drift wood. What the hell was that about?! Her jeep was parked along with all the other cars on the small gravel parking space.  She had the drift wood, which was about the size of a base ball bat, and was angrily whacking it across the hood of her jeep.  He could hear her ranting and raving, but couldn’t decipher the words.  That girl had mental issues.

"Are you sure you aren’t interested?" asked Dave.

Potter looked at his ex best friend and dryly asked, "Aren’t you even curious about
why
she’s beating the stuffing out of her jeep with a log?" They both turned in unison to watch her yelling and hitting her car with the log.  She seemed very angry, causing Potter to rethink going to his car.

Dave smirked and sent Potter a look that clearly said he thought Potter was digging Puck.  Best friends could be a real pain in the butt.

"I have a girlfriend!" argued Potter futilely as they walked to their cars.